Gary Williams was a member of the English department from 1973 until his retirement in 2015. He continues to maintain close ties with current faculty and students.

He was chair of the department first from 1986 to 1996 and an inaugural College of Letters and Science Humanities Fellow in 1998-99. In 2007 he was selected as the university's first Distinguished Humanities Professor. He was department chair again from 2009-2014, and in 2013-14 he served as an Administrative Fellow in the College of Letters, Arts & Social Sciences.  In fall 2014 he was a visiting scholar at Harvard University.

His research focuses on early 19th century American literature, with particular attention to women writers and European influences on American writing.

• 19th century American literature
• Transatlantic literary currents
• 20th/21st century fiction
• Intersections between the humanities and the sciences

• The Literary Emergence of Julia Ward Howe (University of Massachusetts Press, 1999)
• The Hermaphrodite by Julia Ward Howe (edition with introduction, University of Nebraska Press, 2004)
• Philosophies of Sex: New Essays on The Hermaphrodite (edited with Renee Bergland). Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2012.
• “What Did Margaret Think of George,” in A Female Genealogy of Transcendentalism, eds. Jana Argersinger and Phyllis Cole (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2014). (Part of a larger study of George Sand’s impact on 19th-century American intellectuals.)

• Distinguished Humanities Professor, 2007-08
• University of Idaho Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2001
• Sigma Tau Delta Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award, 1999
• Alumni Awards for Excellence in Teaching, 1986, 1988, 1997, 2000, 2004, 2005, 2009, 2012
• ASUI Outstanding Faculty Award, 1980